October 23, 2007

Coming to a movie theater near you: 'Battlestar Galactica: Razor'

If you're on pins and needles waiting for the Nov. 24 debut of the Sci Fi Channel movie "Battlestar Galactica: Razor," help is at hand. You may only have to wait until Nov. 12.

There will be free screenings of the film in movie theaters in eight cities on Nov. 12: Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle and, yes, Chicago. The screenings will take place at multiple locations in each city, but all of the screenings will be on the evening of Nov. 12.

The Chicago-area screenings are at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago, the Century 16 Deer Park in Deer Park and the Century Evanston 18 in Evanston.

Admission is free, but those who want to see “Razor” at a movie theater must first register at the site battlestarevent.com. The site will not go live until Friday. Repeat: The site will not go live until Friday. Seat registrations will be given away first-come, first-served.

“Razor” delves into Lee Adama’s (Jamie Bamber) command of the Battlestar Pegasus and also depicts events that took place on that ship just after the Cylon attack 10 months earlier, while it was under the command of Helena Cain (Michelle Forbes). Cain and the Pegasus, “Battlestar” fans will recall, were first glimpsed in Season 2 of “Battlestar Galactica.”

What will be shown at the Nov. 12 event will be the TV version of “Razor,” which is around 84 minutes long. A 101-minute version of the film, which will be released on DVD on Dec. 4. “Battlestar Galactica” co-executive producer Michael Taylor, who wrote “Razor,” shared some details on what will be on the DVD version. (Extremely mild spoilers ahead. What is below does not give away any plot points about "Razor.")

UPDATE Oct. 26: Sci Fi's press release about the "Razor" screenings is at the end up this item. Click below and scroll down to see it.

Scenes involving “Young Helena Cain,” “Little Lucy Cain” and “Helena’s
Father” were trimmed from the TV version. I noticed those names in the
credits of the version of “Razor” that Sci Fi sent out and wondered if
I had blinked and missed those characters. I didn’t – they’re only in
the extended cut.

On the DVD, there will also be a scene of Cain’s aide, Kendra Shaw (Stephanie Jacobsen) on Caprica.

A couple of other scenes didn’t make into either version of “Razor.”
Taylor said that “the earliest drafts of the script actually showed
scenes of a couple of our regular characters on Caprica, but one got
cut in the writing, and the other we left on the editing room floor.”

As for general thoughts on “Razor,” I don’t want to ruin a single thing
about the movie for you, but overall, I thought it was good.

I thought
the first half was especially strong (and the FX crew outdid really
outdid themselves this time). Michelle Forbes, who plays Helena Cain,
is of course terrific (and if the main impetus behind the film was to bring her back, that's reason enough), and Jacobsen also acquits herself well in her
role.

But these are purely preliminary thoughts, and I feel the need to watch
the movie again before I write a more complete review, which will run
the week before “Razor” debuts.

If you have questions for Taylor about
“Razor,” leave them on this post. I plan to do an email Q+A with him in
the next couple of weeks.

New York, NY – October 26, 2007 - SCI FI Channel and Microsoft have joined forces for a groundbreaking partnership to bring Battlestar Galactica to the big screen. Special advanced preview screenings of the all-new two-hour extended episode Battlestar Galactica: Razor will be held in select movie theaters on Monday, November 12 – nearly two weeks in advance of the episode’s television debut on SCI FI. The event is being managed by National CineMedia LLC.

Written by Michael Taylor and directed by Emmy nominee Felix Alcala, Razor tells the story of Lee Adama’s (Jamie Bamber) first mission as commander of the Battlestar Pegasus and will reveal the story of how Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes) served her ship during the original Cylon attack on the Colonies.

Screenings will take place in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Dallas and Seattle. Admission is FREE, courtesy of Xbox360, Zune, and the new RPG space adventure game “Mass Effect.” A complete list of theaters and ticketing information are available at www.BattlestarEvent.com. Seating is extremely limited.

Razor will air on SCI FI on November 24 @ 9pm and will be followed by the release of an extended/unrated DVD edition on December 4.

Razor is rated TV14-LV, Mass Effect is rated Mature.

Microsoft Game Studios is a leading worldwide publisher and developer of games for the Xbox and Xbox 360 video game systems, the Windows® operating system and online platforms. Comprising a network of top developers, Microsoft Game Studios is committed to creating innovative and diverse games for Windows (http://www.microsoft.com/games), including such franchises as “Age of Empires®,” “Flight Simulator” and “Zoo Tycoon®”; Xbox and Xbox 360 (http://www.xbox.com), including such games as “Gears of War” and franchises such as “Halo,” “Fable®,” “Project Gotham Racing®” and “Forza Motorsport®”; and MSN® Games (http://www.games.msn.com), the official games channel for the MSN network and home to such hits as “Bejeweled” and “Hexic®.

Zune is Microsoft’s music and entertainment brand that provides an integrated digital entertainment experience. The Zune platform includes a line of portable digital media players, the Zune Marketplace online store, and Zune Social, a beta online community Web site created to help people discover music. Zune is part of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division and supports the company’s software-based services vision to help drive innovation in the digital entertainment space. More information can be found online at http://www.zune.net/en-us/press.

National CineMedia LLC operates the largest digital in-theatre network in North America through long term agreements with its founding members, AMC Entertainment Inc., Cinemark USA Inc. (NYSE: CNK) and Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE: RGC), the three largest theatre operators in the U.S., and through multi-year agreements with several other theatre operators. NCM LLC produces and distributes its FirstLook pre feature program; cinema and lobby advertising products; comprehensive meeting and event services and other entertainment programming content. NCM LLC's national network includes over 14,000 screens of which over 12,300 are part of the Company's Digital Content Network (DCN). NCM LLC's DCN covers 156 Designated Market Areas(R) (49 of the top 50).

During 2006, approximately 550 million patrons attended movies shown in theatres owned by the NCM LLC founding members (excluding Loews). National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: NCMI) owns a 44.8% interest in and is the managing member of NCM LLC.

SCI FI Channel is a television network where "what if" is what's on. SCI FI fuels the imagination of viewers with original series and events, blockbuster movies and classic science fiction and fantasy programming, as well as a dynamic Web site (www.scifi.com <http://www.scifi.com>) and magazine. Launched in 1992, and currently in 92 million homes, SCI FI Channel is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.

Comments

Hi Maureen,

The question I've been wondering about this, which I haven't yet found a clear answer to, is should I watch it if I haven't seen season three?

I don't get SciFi, and so am stuck waiting on the DVDs of this show. Since they are, inexplicably, holding off the release of s3 until at least April, I'd love to get a fix early...but only if it won't spoil me.

Can you answer that for me? Thanks!

[Mo here: Hmmm. Good question. My first instinct is to say you can watch it without having seen S3, but I'll defer that one to Michael.]

Frakking Seattle? Over the past couple of years, Portland's done a bunch of full series runs of TV programs on the big screen (Buffy, Firefly, Arrested Development), and is the birthplace of the charity screenings of Serenity (and the city that makes the most every year for them), and they take this event to Seattle, not Portland.

Tyler, the URL isn't so much wrong as not live yet, as indicated clearly in the article. Presumably the company 'Opus Solutions' is managing the event for SciFi/Universal and the domain will cease redirecting to their site when Friday comes along.

Sci Fi rolls on with highly derivative, poorly written programming like Battlestar 24/90210, and cancels inovative out of the box shows like Dresden Files. I rarely look at their offerings and now even less so.

"Sci Fi rolls on with highly derivative, poorly written programming like Battlestar 24/90210, and cancels inovative out of the box shows like Dresden Files."

Interesting thoughts Michael. I have to disagree that BSGr is poorly written. I find it to be one of the better written shows on TV these days, amazing when you consider the quality of other showings on Sci-Fi Network.

As for Dresden Files, it went away because it needed to go away. I like Butcher's little universe, but what was showing on Sci-Fi just wasn't that good.

Michael, from what we've heard about Razor, it seems to be told with flashbacks and some threading around. It reminds me of Unfinished Business which you wrote and which was on of my top three episodes ever. Were there some similarites in style?

Seattle is the #2 market for BSG, it is VERY FITTING that a screening take place there. I for one am an extremely happy Seattlelite! Thanks so much for the information, Mo. Looking forward to your review.

Someone on LJ said that I could come in here and submit questions for Michael Taylor, and I'd love the chance to do that. Here's my question: The relationship between Lee and Kara has been built up, literally, since the miniseries. Even after the culmination in Unfinished Business and the almost-affair and then return to their spouses, it was still hinted at that there is more between them. In Maelstrom, Kara hinted that she would still like to be with Lee, when asking how he and Dee were doing. In TSAR, Lee reacted strongly to Romo's story about losing the love of his life and realizing that if he couldn't have her, there was no point to anything. All of this build-up implies that Kara and Lee will have to be together in the end, or they will never be truly happy. It would be a complete and total cop-out after all of that if they just decided to shake hands and be friends and moved on like none of it ever happened. So, what I want to know is... can fans have faith that this storyline will be handled appropriately, and not just scrapped or left open in favor of a heavy cylon and destin/prophecy plot? I don't need the ending tied up in a nice little bow for me... but I'd like to know that I haven't been wasting my time investing in this relationship. As wonderful as the show is, the main reason I watch is for Lee/Kara first and foremost, and the LKAR family-type relationship after that.

Hey all, sorry to be incommunicado most of the day. To answer some questions:

I was told full information on the screenings will be released Friday, so we should know more about times etc then.

Revisiting the question of whether you should watch Razor without having seen Season 3 -- that's a hard one. I'd maybe lean toward seeing S3 first, since it might impact how you view certain things in S3 if you've seen Razor first.

No idea about Hi Def.

As for screenings in other cities, I think the locations are pretty much set.

I'm told the Seattle event is tied into a gaming release, that's really the only additional scrap of info I have on that.

Not sure I'm going to post about the Damages finale. Except to say I liked it. Suitably twisty!

I was wondering if their is anything in the Razor episode that will be relatively important to season 4.

And also are their any different sides to Admiral Cain that we might be suprised to see in Razor? She just seems to have been portrayed in a very strict and to the point kinda person but I have always felt that their's another side to her.

Is it true that the Sci Fi will only be airing the first half of Razor and holding the second half til 2010?
Auugh!
My serious question to Mr. Taylor is that just the flashbacks I've seen of Cylon War One have me jonesing for a prequel about Galactica in that war. Any hope?

Serious question two; What's it like writing for characters that are going to die and a ship that will be destroyed?

It's live now -- and I just got in! (Though it says seating isn't guaranteed.)

It's Friday in New York, after all...

And about the Monday showing -- you really didn't think they'd schedule a FREE movie screening (two, as it turns out) on a night when most people will be coming out and paying to see a film, now do you?

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